You Tell Us: Vote no on Measure A1

Measure A1 on the Alameda County ballot hits me close to home. I grew up in the East Oakland hills surrounded by incredible open space. Beyond our backyards were hills and canyons where we emulated explorers and Indians, caught lizards, slid down grassy hillsides on cardboard and gave names to rocks and trees and places where we played. Two blocks from my house was a vast open space that I rediscovered when I started walking my dog there while visiting my mother. Being amidst familiar grasses, wildflowers, trees, butterflies, and birds and looking upon the entirety of the East Bay from the Berkeley Campanile to the Dunbarton Bridge never fails to reawaken the intimate connection I have with this land and my gratitude for it. As kids we called this area “Farmers’ Field,” perhaps because the crest of the hill was flat, because there were never any farmers. It’s never been developed, and today this area is part of Knowland Park. But for bulldozed firebreaks and the occasional presence of grazing goats, it has not changed in my lifetime.

But now it’s all about to change. Farmers Field is the future site of the Oakland Zoo’s $70+ million theme park, aka the zoo “expansion,” a half mile up the hill from the zoo. Everything in between is undeveloped and ecologically rich. Is the zoo expansion a done deal? Yes, if the zoo can afford it. They maintain that private donors have pledged most of the funds for its 34,000 square foot three-story building with a visitor center, restaurant, gift shop, and office complex, along with animal enclosures, a fence around the 54 acre compound, and gondolas. Overhead gondolas emanating from the zoo will transport the public to this remote area.